The softer side of POV

Why sticking to one point of view is better for the story

The Snarky Editor comes out to play when she discovers egregious and often hilarious errors in published books. But The Snarky Editor has a softer and more helpful side as well, the side that’s known as Leigh Michaels.

During my teaching career, I’ve been called the POV Police (and worse, now that I think about it) because of my firm stance that ONE character’s point of view is all that’s allowed in a specific scene.

As we're writing, it feels very natural to include the thoughts and feelings of all the characters. And why wouldn't it feel natural? As the creator of these characters, we have to know what everyone in the room is thinking in order to write the story, so it flows almost naturally onto the page to share that with the reader.

But head-hopping — shifting back and forth so we get both characters’ thoughts about what’s going on — is disconcerting for the reader. And it’s also bad for the writer.

It's easy to forget that in real life we only get one POV -- our own -- and we have to figure out what everyone else is thinking through what they say and how they act. So restricting our POV to one at a time helps our reader get immersed into the story and characters, because it feels more REAL than flitting around from one POV to the other.

Still, sometimes writers feel restricted by this rule. Why CAN'T they share all this? Won't the reader need to know it? So let's turn it around and look at it from another perspective. (Er... sorry about that.)

Keeping tight control of perspective and POV in your story is a great way to increase the suspense and the tension for the reader -- precisely because the reader doesn't know everything that's going on.

Let's take a quick-and-dirty example -- and one you probably wouldn't use in a book because it's a bit of a cliche:

Sally sees Burt with another woman at a bar, laughing and joking, and he brushes a hand over the woman's hair in a rather intimate way.

So Sally confronts Burt the next day: "Who is that woman you were with?"

And Burt says, "What woman?" He looks a little confused, or maybe he's defensive, or maybe he's scrambling for a little time to formulate an answer. But the point is the reader doesn't KNOW which of those -- if any -- is the truth, because our POV character, Sally, doesn't know what Burt’s thinking.

Sally says, "The woman at the bar last night."

And Burt says, "Oh, her. She's nobody for you to worry about."

Sally only knows what he's said and what she's deduced from his expressions (is he lying?) And the reader thinks, "Yeah, pretty sure you should worry about her!"

Result: suspense. Who is the woman? Why didn't he really answer the question? What will Sally do about it? And tension: Why is he hiding things? What else is he hiding? How can Sally trust him now?

But if instead we shift immediately to Burt's POV and share his thoughts, we instantly find out that the woman is his sister, or his niece, or the undercover cop he's working with to take down a drug ring, or the old girlfriend who’s now a CIA spy who's trying to recruit him, or...

So if we include all the POVs, it goes like this instead:

Sally confronts Burt the next day: "Who is that woman you were with?"

And Burt thinks, Dammit, she must have seen me meeting with Olivia; I was so hoping that our undercover operation wouldn't draw attention before we get a chance to take down the drug gang. And all of this is before he says, "What woman?"

The reader has had no time to think about it, or to wonder. Instantly the suspense is gone, the tension is limited. We know that Burt's a good guy and Sally should indeed trust him, so we may even feel impatient with her if she's still in the dark. (Not fair, but...) We may also think that Burt's a bit of a tool, but that's another thing altogether.

My point is that with a restricted POV, even if the next scene is Burt's and we find out then about the sister / niece / undercover cop / CIA spy, the reader has had time to develop some suspense, some time to wonder what he's really up to. So even we get the facts, we're already a bit inclined to suspect there's something deeper going on.

You can use the POV rules -- sticking to one POV in a scene, and only one -- to help tell your story, to help foreshadow action, to conceal intention. To build tension and suspense.

What do you think? Share your thoughts, your experience, your examples, your questions.

Is there a topic you’d like to see addressed?

The Snarky Editor’s Softer Side is represented weekly by author / editor / teacher / writing coach Leigh Michaels, commenting on random topics of interest to writers and readers. Leigh is the award-winning author of more than 100 books. (The Snarky Editor herself mainly comes out to play when she discovers egregious and often hilarious errors in published books.)

To find out more, check out https://leighmichaels.com

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